James Bond film producer Barbara Broccoli is recalling the moment the Queen made her Bond debut during the Olympics opening ceremony. “The taxi pulled up in front of Buckingham Palace and as soon as the audience saw the outline of that leg, they knew it was Daniel. We saw the back of the Queen and everyone I’m sure thought, ‘It’s Helen Mirren.’ And when she turned around it was like a volcanic eruption. How wonderful of her to have done it.”

The daughter of veteran Bond producer Albert R “Cubby” Broccoli and actress Dana Wilson, Broccoli, 52, grew up in a household where James Bond was talked about so much she thought he was a real person until she was seven.

Her first memory was watching the filming of the Japanese tea ceremony in You Only Live Twice with Sean Connery. When her father died in 1996, Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G Wilson took over the 007 franchise.

This year they celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bond. The new movie, Skyfall, released in October, is directed by Sam Mendes.

Earlier this month the trailer was released. We now know that Bond’s loyalty to Judi Dench’s M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. And Bond fakes his own death.

London is a central character in the movie. Filming has taken place in Whitehall, Vauxhall Cross’s MI6 headquarters, Pinewood Studios and the Underground.

As with The Dark Knight Rises, with its scenes of bloated bankers and a nascent Occupy movement, she believes Skyfall has a lot to say about contemporary evil.

“It’s extraordinary Ian Fleming wrote the books 60 years ago. It feels like we’re in the right groove now for what he had to say about how real villainy is coming from individuals — not just political states, but individuals who are wielding all sorts of treacherous plans on the earth.”

In fact Skyfall is not based on any Fleming story — there aren’t any left — but they have tried to bring some of the feelings of older Bond movies into the film. “What distinguishes Bond from other action heroes is the tongue-in-cheek Britishness.”

Q is back — played as a super-nerdy master of spy technology by Ben Whishaw (The Hour, The Hollow Crown). Good news for fans who felt Bond had become a Jason Bourne-style automaton in the last film, Quantum of Solace. We need more wit and panache — and Mendes sounds the man to deliver it.

“When Daniel suggested him, we were unbelievably thrilled that he would be interested because he is such a fine director.”

Of course Broccoli was instrumental in casting Craig in the first place. “One of the things about Daniel is he’s let us into Bond’s inner life, we see and feel him from a much more intimate place. In the books you get a look into his inner conflicts and fears and anxieties, but it’s very hard to put that on the screen without making him look neurotic as a leading man. A lot of the books focus on accidie — this revulsion he had for his profession; it’s not easy killing people. He fell completely in love with Vesper and she betrayed him, so he realises, from that point, he can never be susceptible to a relationship again.”

That loneliness fuels Bond’s hedonism. “He has this voracious appetite for life; he’s going to drink and eat and have sex because he doesn’t know in the next moment if he’s going to be killed. The black humour is his way of dealing with death, he laughs in its face.”

Every Bond film has a great villain. This time it’s Oscar-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem playing Raoul Silva.

“Javier is really extraordinary in this film and the blonde wig he wears is part of his story. He spends a lot of time creating a character, and it’s something he devised with Sam. It’s very much his mystique — it gives an unnatural element. Javier is a true chameleon. You imagine an actor like that would be very intense all the time, but off duty he’s a delight. Getting up in the morning to go to work to spend the day with Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem is pretty fun,” she teases.

Broccoli’s other masterstroke was to make M, the head of the British secret service, a woman — two years after Stella Rimington became DG of MI5 in 1993.

So it’s fascinating we finally get M’s back story in Skyfall. In the trailer we see Silva — who may or may not have worked for MI6 — taunting Bond about M’s betrayal: “Mommy has been very bad.”

“M has always been the one authority figure in Bond’s life. She is the only person he can really trust. I think this story, which I’m not going to tell you very much about,” she says with a glint, “is the heart of the movie. She represents many things to him and it’s wonderful territory to explore. And obviously Sam had directed Judi and Daniel before, so he was excited about working it through emotionally.”

We can also credit Broccoli with tackling the sexism of 007. “Fortunately, the days of Bond girls standing around with a clipboard are over,” she says drily.

But she knows Bond isn’t Bond without glamour and gorgeous women. In Skyfall, Naomie Harris plays field agent Eve, while French actress Bérénice Marlohe is the enigmatic Sévérine.

“Actually, when you read the early books, and watch the early films, the women were very interesting, exotic, complicated people. I always get into such an issue when I talk about these things,” she adds, knowing any quote will make headlines around the world. “But they were pretty strong in their own right. Yes, okay, Pussy Galore was a pilot and gay, but that was pretty extraordinary for the time, the fact that she fell into bed with Bond.

“And look at Ursula Andress [emerging from the sea in Dr No]. Yes, she’s the most stunningly beautiful person in the whole world but her look was very different to what had come before. First of all, she had a very athletic body, and she was also incredibly natural — no make-up, no false eyelashes. I think that image of natural beauty is one we appreciate.”

One senses that Broccoli, elegant, charming, has a core of steel. In the early days, she watched Craig’s back, accompanying him to press conferences, batting off the ferocious criticism that first greeted his casting for Casino Royale.

“It’s absurd,” she shudders slightly. “I think that’s the trouble with the internet now. Everyone has an equal voice so people read something — supposedly written with great authority — and it’s by a 12-year-old in a little town some place in the United States who’s never seen Daniel Craig, doesn’t know what he’s capable of, and starts this fire. And then it’s given prominence, which is bizarre. Of course we were making the film and we knew what we had, so we just ignored it.”

Divorced, with a grown-up daughter, Broccoli works long days. As well as overseeing the end of shooting on Skyfall, she is co-producing the stage version of Chariots of Fire.

Our interview takes place at the Gielgud Theatre, which has been turned into a race track for the 1924 Paris Olympics. There’s something thrilling about watching the young actors playing runners Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell as they thunder around the track.

The play brings back memories for Broccoli, who co-produced the original 1981 film with her friend Dodi Fayed, who died in the crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales.

“Dodi really identified with the character of Harold Abrahams, a Lithuanian Jew struggling for acceptance in Britain. Dodi had a similar understanding of knowing what it was like to struggle to be accepted. And he really appreciated Eric Liddell’s strong belief in not wanting to run on a Sunday. He was touched by the story.”

She and the film’s director Hugh Hudson felt they could give people an immersive theatrical experience as thrilling as the Games themselves. “The audience can feel the actors’ heat, sweat, exertion.”

And of course life imitates art. Vangelis’s music featured at the opening ceremony and she admits her heart misses a beat every time it’s played during medal presentations. “Vangelis just hits that God spot. It’s the anthem of excellence.”

The play’s message of self-sacrifice and sportsmanship resonates at today’s Games she believes. “So many athletes are coming from war-torn countries. What it must take for them to get here.”

Born in LA, Broccoli grew up in London. Aged 17 she studied motion picture and television communications at Loyola Marymount University in the US, then joined Eon Productions at Pinewood, responsible for Bond films since 1962, first working in publicity, before she began producing.

She was made an OBE in 2008 and has been mentoring young directors. “I despair because women certainly have their voice in so many other areas. I don’t know why it’s been so difficult to get women into the industry in terms of directing film.”

If Kathryn Bigelow can direct the all-male Hurt Locker, how about a female director for Bond? “I’d be thrilled.”

But she is equally passionate about theatre: she recently watched Mark Rylance as Richard III at the Globe. “That’s what so brilliant about Britain. Theatre is the backbone of the industry.”

The joke is that Skyfall has so many great British stage actors — Dench, Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes, Helen McCrory, Albert Finney (“be still my beating heart,” jokes Broccoli) — it’s nicknamed the National Theatre of Bond.

“We sat down and said, ‘In a perfect world, who would we want for all these roles?’ and drew up a list. And we got everybody. You know, it’s unheard of.”

Such is the passion Bond arouses. I tell her every time I go to the Barbican there’s another middle-aged man having his photograph taken next to the Aston Martin from Goldfinger, the star exhibit in the Bond exhibition.

“It’s so funny, the Bond movies reduce everybody to their 12-year-old self,” she laughs. “Sam Mendes is like a 12-year-old boy making a Bond film!”

Chariots of Fire is at the Gielgud Theatre, W1 (0844 4825130; chariotsoffireonstage.com)